Christmas Yoko (Days 661 - 672)

photo by AnimeCraft Entertainment

I went to Holiday Anime Faire this past Saturday, and you can read my full review of it here. There were about the same amount of cosplayers there are there are every year (not many), the cosplay contest went quickly and seemed to have fair judging. I cosplayed as a Christmas Version on Yoko (Gurren Lagann), the response to my costume was very positive, I had a photoshoot, and I won "Special Recognition for Costume Construction" in the contest.

Originally, I was going to cosplay Christmas Chi to the convention, I really wanted a holiday-themed outfit for the holilday-themed convention, but I also really wanted to bring my rifle (which I recently finished) to compete with. I decided on a Christmas version of Yoko mostly because I didn't feel like wearing a bikini to a convention in Winter that's geared more toward children. I couldn't find a Christmas version of Yoko online before the convention, though my friend told me of one later. When I looked it up, it turned out it was a bikini (of course), and I didn't like it anyway.

To make Christmas Yoko, I did temporary alterations (safety-pinned) on my Christmas Chi outfit, finished my rifle, and made fluffy wrist cuffs, a skull hairpin, and one sleeve. I also changed some of the clothes: a white tank top instead of a black shirt, a black studded belt instead of a plain one, flesh-toned leggings instead of white, black combat boots instead of character shoes, and fingerless gloves with a cutout instead of regular black gloves.

The skull hairpin was the first thing that I made, since it was the easiest, and at the time, I still wasn't sure if I was going to wear Yoko or Chi. Originally, I wanted to just wear a Santa hat and forgo the pin, but then I realized that not only would it be difficult to get a hat on over Yoko's ponytail, it would also make me nearly unrecognizable. So to incorporate the Christmas theme more, I put a Santa hat on the skull. (I later found out that the official Christmas Yoko has a reindeer skull.)

All that needed to be done on the rifle was detailing really (though it's still not 100% done). I added the black and yellow stripes, pink stripes, and pink strap so that I could carry it on my back. I also had to re-attach the scope because it had fallen off. The re-attached scope was much more stable, but still didn't survive the entire day at the convention. I'm not entirely sure when or how it happened, but the front two pieces that hold up the scope broke, so the scope was still attached, it just hung to the side. This was only really a problem when I went to do the photoshoot.

Making the one sleeve piece was surprisingly easy. At first, I attempted to make fingerless gloves accurate to Yoko's pre-time-skip outfit, but I didn't have enough fabric (also gloves are ridiculously hard to make). When I went to buy more fabric, they didn't have the kind I needed in the right color, so I ended up using fingerless gloves that I already had. The sleeve was made from an old shirt sleeve that had been cut off for another (abandoned) project. It has a slight curve to it that hits me right at the elbow, and it fits perfectly. It didn't fall down and needed no adjusting the entire day. Unfortunately, since it's not the fabric I intend to make my gloves out of in the future, I'll have to make another one if/when I cosplay pre-time-skip Yoko, but at least I can use this one as a pattern.

The fluffy wrist cuffs with bells on them were meant to look like Yoko's gauntlets that she wears pre-time-skip. Since my wrists are so small, I didn't have enough room to put five bells on each the way Yoko has five yellow... things(?) on each of her gauntlets, so each wrist cuff has three bells.

This costume was cute and fun to wear, I love cosplaying Yoko. I got recognized a lot, probably mostly thanks to the rifle, and I got a really positive response from everyone I talked to. I don't think I'll ever wear Christmas Yoko again though, unless I go to another Christmas-themed event this year, which I don't intend to. As fun as it is to cosplay original variations, I do prefer to stick to original artwork, especially with someone like Yoko who has so many official variations anyway.